ECommerce Merchants See Boost in Traffic from BigCommerce SocialShop

AUSTIN, Texas, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- BigCommerce, the leading provider of ecommerce software for small business merchants, today announced that its new SocialShop application is driving significant traffic and sales for its merchants, with nearly 20% of its customers deploying SocialShop in the month since its launch.  SocialShop is among the first applications that allow online merchants to sell products from their e-retail sites using Facebook Platform.

SocialShop early adopters are lauding its effectiveness in boosting sales and attracting new customers.  For example, Richard Potvin reports that traffic for his online tire studs site Maxigrip Store has increased by about 7% since implementing SocialShop one month ago.

"Facebook is already an important traffic driver for Maxigrip - we get about 9% of our traffic from our Facebook Page," says Potvin.  "SocialShop couldn't have come at a more perfect time - at no cost, we've been able to boost sales by 7% during a season that is traditionally slow for us.  SocialShop is a really great social window for our store and has allowed us to expand our audience. And all of this at zero added cost - love it!"

SocialShop is also proving effective for highly specialized retailers such as Jason Mellet of Cricket Store Online.  This online seller of cricket gear derives more than 10% of his traffic from Facebook, and reports that website sales have doubled since implementing BigCommerce SocialShop just one month ago.  Says Mellet, "I think SocialShop is a great way of getting your products out there; I sell to a very niche market, so it's been very rewarding to see that this kind of social tool works for less mainstream products."

BigCommerce SocialShop is easy to install, works with a just a few clicks and is available as a free application. Merchants simply add the BigCommerce SocialShop application to their Facebook Page, enter their store URL, and choose which products they want to display. A "Shop" tab appears on the company's Facebook Page, showing new or popular products from their BigCommerce store.  Facebook users can then easily click on a product to learn more, buy the product through the merchant's BigCommerce store, or share the product with their friends on Facebook.

"We've seen enormous uptake from our online merchants who understand the huge opportunity presented by Facebook to drive business and engage directly with customers," said Mitchell Harper, co-Founder and co-CEO of BigCommerce. "We look forward to working with more merchants to expand their marketing and connect with their customers in a social context."

BigCommerce is transforming the ecommerce landscape with its agile approach to product innovation, leapfrogging competitors such as Yahoo! Stores by actively soliciting customer feedback and delivering a steady stream of high-impact feature enhancements.  This approach has fueled the company's more than 100% monthly growth rate since its launch in August 2009 and led more than 25% of the company's customers to switch to BigCommerce after using solutions from Yahoo! and others.  BigCommerce was voted the #1 ecommerce platform by popular software review Website TopTenReviews.

To see a demo of BigCommerce SocialShop, please visit http://www.bigcommerce.com/tour-bigcommerce-socialshop.php.

ABOUT BIGCOMMERCE

BigCommerce is the leading provider of ecommerce software for small business merchants.  BigCommerce enables any small business to easily set up and operate a professional ecommerce site, combining advanced ecommerce functionality with simple, intuitive design and administration.  More than just an ecommerce platform, BigCommerce also helps small businesses attract more customers to their stores with just a few simple clicks, and offers more features than other ecommerce solutions.  BigCommerce is the latest offering from Interspire™, a leading provider of shopping cart software used by more than 40,000 organizations worldwide.  For more information, please visit www.bigcommerce.com.

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SOURCE BigCommerce